Albany Med publication a window into med student life

Students far and wide reveal what it's really like to become an MD

Med students Ajay Major, left, of Valparaiso, Ind., and Aleena Paul of Bellerose Queens with a laptop showing off an online publication they launched called "In Training" at Albany Medical Center Wednesday Feb. 19, 2014, in Albany, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) less

Med students Ajay Major, left, of Valparaiso, Ind., and Aleena Paul of Bellerose Queens with a laptop showing off an online publication they launched called "In Training" at Albany Medical Center Wednesday Feb. ... more

Med students Ajay Major, left, of Valparaiso, Ind., and Aleena Paul of Bellerose Queens with a laptop showing off an online publication they launched called "In Training" at Albany Medical Center Wednesday Feb. 19, 2014, in Albany, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) less

Med students Ajay Major, left, of Valparaiso, Ind., and Aleena Paul of Bellerose Queens with a laptop showing off an online publication they launched called "In Training" at Albany Medical Center Wednesday Feb. ... more

Albany Medical College students Ajay Major and Aleena Paul conceived their online publication as a site for reporting on news from medical schools all over the country.

But something unexpected happened when they asked for contributions for the site they called in-Training. Med students sent in personal, revealing reflections about their first times encountering emotionally charged situations or dealing with the kind of stress only another doctor-to-be could understand.

"No textbook, lecture slide or photo will ever tell you how much stillness there is. And how difficult it is to see those fingers, the toes, the mouth, the stomach ... without writhing and without warmth," Nguyen wrote.

Or Samuel Scott's Feb. 4 piece on being diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.

"I had been able to get by to this point on sheer intelligence and good test-taking skills, but now I was at the point of not being able to function," wrote Scott, of the University at Toledo College of Medicine.

And so in-Training came to offer a window into what it's really like to begin a career as a doctor. That was all right with the founders.

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"There really was no place for the medical student reflections. We just happened to fill that niche," Paul said. "That caused us to change our initial thinking about what in-Training was going to be."

Major and Paul met as undergraduates at Union College in Schenectady, where they were part of the Leadership in Medicine program and worked on the student newspaper, the Concordiensis. Their studies led them both to Albany Med, but neither wanted to give up journalism, Paul said.

They spent the summer before med school planning in-Training, and with financial support from the Albany Medical College Alumni Association for hosting the website, went live about a year later, in July 2012. They called in-Training the "agora" of the medical student community, using a Greek word for a gathering place — "the intellectual center of a village," Major said. Word spread on Facebook, as contributors posted links to their work, Paul said.

The timing was good, they said.

"There was a movement in the medical community toward a more humanistic approach to medicine," Paul said. "We were able to kind of be at the forefront of that."

The pair established some critical guiding principles for the online publication: No subscriptions — the information is free. No ads — they don't want sponsors to assert influence on what gets published. No copyrighting of authors' material — they are free to publish their pieces in other places. No hiding — authors' names and their medical school affiliations are published.

As editors, Major and Paul give careful consideration to the contributions to in-Training. They work with authors to improve their pieces. They spend a couple of hours a day working on the website, which has recently incorporated some journalism and policy pieces, as well as personal reflections.

"It's quite a big responsibility," Major said.

In-Training's editorial board is made up entirely of medical students.

They're getting some attention.

Their statistics show 500 unique visitors to the website each day.

They've published 267 articles by 128 medical students from the United States, Canada, India, Ireland and the Dutch Antilles.